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Let the nightmare begin (excerpt)
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2002/oct/26/guardiansaturdaytravelsection5 The man with the chainsaw heads straight for me. His face is contorted in a mask of pure hate and the power tool is roaring above his head. Around me, girls are swerving behind quivering boyfriends who are inching backwards into the billowing fog that suffocates the street. For a moment, I am terrified, frozen to the spot imagining how it will feel to have a saw grind through my flesh, bone and muscle. I'm guessing being murdered to pieces will be painful. Then I remember I am in a theme park. The mask of hate is actually a mask of rubber, his chainsaw will have been denatured and none of this - not even the fog - is real. Best of all, I am in America so if this demented DIY expert as much as disturbs a hair on my head, I will see him and Universal Studios in court. Yet even this doesn't stop the whole experience being quite terrifying. Besides, as everyone knows from watching scary movies, the Big Bad can appear out of nowhere (the gloomy basement, the summer camp woodshed) and turn you into his supper. It is perhaps for this reason my heart is pumping, my palms are sweating and my eyes are wide, even after Chainsaw Man has turned his attentions towards some other nervous soul who, at this very moment, is slurping a jumbo cup of cola as if it were bravery juice. After whooping like a girl, I begin to laugh nervously in that well-of-course-I-wasn't-really-scared kind of way. This is Universal Studios' Islands of Adventure theme park. Only, for most of these October evenings, it has been transformed into Islands of Fear. The story - for there is a story behind everything here - is that the islands have been taken over by the forces of darkness (or perhaps the Forces of Darkness) led by the monstrous caretaker (or, more likely, the Caretaker). The Caretaker cuts out his victims' hearts and has very bad teeth. It is unclear which is the more heinous crime in America. The Caretaker has enabled villains to take over Marvel Super Hero Island and has unleashed half-man, half-dinosaur mutants in Jurassic Park. The Lost Continent has become the Island of Lost Souls, over which the evil Nightmare has dominion, and Toon Lagoon has become a freakish caricature of its former self. See what I mean about the stories? And here I am - someone who takes no pleasure in being scared - standing in line for a horror maze called Screamhouse. Themed around the smalltown mortuary of the Caine family, it is one of four labyrinths devised by Universal's "scream team" of designers and infested by a variety of monsters, mutants and maniacs - which is to say, out-of-work actors in horror-film costumes who take their roles very seriously. Inside the maze, it goes from gloomy to pitch black and back again. Feeling your way about winding corridors, every corner conceals a ghost or ghoul or else limitless darkness. I'm not sure which is worse. Curtains, wisps of material and body bags hang from the ceiling and you have to push your way through them, unsure of what lurks beyond. Smoke is pumped in, a strobe light begins pulsing and you can see nothing. You are propelled forward - the queue is pushing at your back - but every step is taken with reluctance. You cling to the person in front of you, you scream in spite of yourself and you are desperate to get to the end. Eventually, you exit. There is fresh air. You can see the sky. Everyone around you is laughing that nervous laughter. And then you have the chainsaw people to deal with again. It's not as if Orlando isn't scary enough, what with the obesity epidemic, the inane smiling and the conversations that go nowhere. And then there's the metal detectors all guests have to pass through to get into the Islands of Fear. Perhaps scary is too strong a word, but Orlando is probably the only destination on the planet you go to not to actually go there but to seep up whatever "theme" a particular area, hotel or park has been doused in. At Universal, for example, you can stay in the Royal Pacific Resort (South Sea islands theme), the Portofino Bay Hotel (Italian Riveria theme) or the Hard Rock Hotel, the theme of which you can probably work out for yourself. Nothing feels real, everything is simulacra. Perhaps the word is "odd". Back on the Islands of Fear, it's clear you're not in Disney any more, Toto. With the opening of its hotels earlier this year, Universal has become a proper resort and a real rival of Disney for tourist dollars. For a decade, it has survived on the spillover from the mighty Mouse 15 miles down the interstate but after five years of building frenzy, it has come of age. Universal's lot may only be a tenth of the size of the Disney compound - which covers an area larger than the island of Manhattan - and it might only have 48 attractions compared with Disney's 115, but there is a certain something about Universal that Disney doesn't have - an edge. It may only be a smooth, sanitised Orlando edge, but it's an edge nonetheless. Were theHalloween Horror Nights shenanigans occurring down the Magic Kingdom, Walt would surely be spinning in his cryogenic freezer. Getting there: Virgin Holidays (0871 2221900, Virgin Holidays) offers seven-night packages from £979 per adult, under 10s from £379, teens from £459, including direct flights, accommodation, car hire or transfers and the Universal Pass giving unlimited access to the two theme parks and City Walk, its entertainment district (Universal Orlando). Category:Halloween Horror Nights article